Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Saturday said the people who support militancy in Kashmir are against the basic ethos of Kashmiri culture and Sufi Islam.

"An objective examination of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir will reveal that those who support militancy in the state are against the basic ethos of Kashmiri culture of peace, brotherhood and friendship," he said at a convocation ceremony of the Kashmir University in Srinagar.

Quoting extensively from the works of eminent philosophers and poets, the prime minister said it was the responsibility of the intelligentsia, mass media, artists and political workers to highlight communal harmony and national unity in Kashmir and in the rest of the country.

The prime minister lauded the people of Kashmir for coming out in good numbers to vote in the last assembly election in the state.

Stating that vested interests were seeking to project that historic election in a different light, Vajpayee said: "It was forgotten for some time that a democracy can be subjected to manipulation."

The prime minister assured that the state's demand for more institutions of higher education would receive a sympathetic consideration and regretted that their was only one university in the Valley.

Vajpayee, however, said it was a great pleasure to see more and more students from Kashmir enrolling in educational institutions across the country.

"I would like the Ministry of Human Resources Development and non-government educational institutions to open up more avenues for these students," he said.